Ideas worth spreading.
“Mitt Romney: Married to the Right-Wing Mob” – Steve M. (No More Mr. Nice Blog)
Christine O’Donnell. Sharron Angle. Joe Miller. Richard Mourdock.
GOP officials are scared to death that they’re going to be labeled as “insufficiently conservative” and primaried by the Tea Party.
Now, let’s assume that Mitt Romney wins the Presidency. He’s now beholden to a base that will demand absolute fealty on a variety of issues that will leave him and a presumably Republican Congress zero room to move. If he strays from the party line even a little, come 2016 the Tea Party and Co. will be drafting Paul Ryan or whoever the current conservative flavor du jour is to go after Romney from the right.
The only saving grace is that so far, the Tea Party has proved spectacularly inept at winning anything above deep red House districts, and very likely cost the GOP control of the Senate in 2010 by nominating three of the candidates noted above.
“Who are the Job Creators?” – Nick Hanauer (TED)
This is the full TED talk from venture capitalist Nick Hanauer, one of the earliest investors in Amazon.
For forty years, the GOP has made their economic cornerstone “tax cuts create jobs”, and used that to functionally steal trillions of dollars from the middle class, and direct it to a handful of super-wealthy individuals. They’ve done it by creating a smokescreen of ultimately meaningless social issues to distract the electorate from their dark work.
Now, thanks to the internet and a handful of dogged members of the media, the veil is being pierced and it’s become increasingly obvious that the American people are being ripped off.
To borrow from the The Dark Knight Rises trailer, “There is a storm coming. You and your friends better batten down the hatches, because when it hits you’re all going to wonder how you could live so large, and leave so little for the rest of us.”
Later in the trailer, Bruce Wayne asks “What does that mean?”, in reference to the chanting of Bane’s army.
Alfred replies, “Rise.”
“Ryan: GOP won’t offer Obamacare substitute in 2012” – Philip Klein (Washington Examiner)
Basically, the GOP is going to try to keep all the stuff voters like, and jettison the stuff they don’t. The problem is, the insurance companies are going to freak the fuck out when you tell them that they have to cover everyone, but not everyone has to sign up.
This is a recipe for destroying the American healthcare and insurance industries. On the other hand, after the collapse of American healthcare and insurance, we’ll be forced into a single payer system.
By the way, if you’re looking for the right word to call this, I happen to like “farce”.
“Why attacking Rev. Wright is too risky for the Romney Campaign” – Conor Friedersdorf (The Atlantic)
Attacking Obama over Reverend Wright would involve tricky maneuvering that Romney, and for that matter pretty much no one, is deft enough to pull off. If you’re going to use Reverend Wright as an attack, you have to use it like a scalpel, not a sledgehammer. You have to question whether or not Obama’s long term association with a pastor who holds views out of the mainstream with the vast majority of Americans; black, white, and otherwise; is proper for a President of the United States.
Personally, I associate with plenty of people that I know share views in and out of the mainstream, so I don’t think it matters.
The problem is the GOP doesn’t have anyone that can use this issue like a scalpel. They can’t peel back the layers of Obama’s likeability. Instead, they’ll use it like a sledgehammer, and then we’re right back to Lee Atwater, 1967, and “N****r, n****r, n****r.”.
“President Obama is ending Black America’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy” – Aisha C. Moodie-Mills (The Atlantic)
I think is true for America in general. A lot of people are reflexively opposed to gay marriage, but have never given it a lot of thought. I think the national examination on our views of sexuality is long overdue, and I expect that marriage equality acceptance will grow far faster than the 5% per annum it’s been growing over the next few years. If I had to guess the lower bound of acceptance, I’d guess 27%.
“Corporate Criminals Gone Wild” – Andrew Leonard (Salon)
A hat tip to Grand Inquisitor for sending this one in.
The biggest mistake of Obama’s first term was failing to throw half of Wall Street in jail. The first thing he should have done is directed the SEC and Justice Department to begin proceedings against every major player in the financial services industry and bring every executive to account for their epic failure, as an industry.
In failing to do so, he created a community of superrich amoral financial gangsters who now had PROOF they were above the law.
Heads needed to roll. If they had, maybe the Tea Party wouldn’t have been as effective in upending the Democratic majority in 2010.
“Arizona Goes Birther: Secretary of State says it’s “possible” Obama won’t be on ballot.” – Nick R. Martin (TPM)
I know we talked about the GOP’s “emergency” plan for Arizona yesterday, but don’t you think it’s a bit early to impliment something this extreme?
“Merkley: Reid’s got my back on Filibuster Reform” – Brian Beutler (TPM)
The fact that the GOP was able to force Harry Reid into embracing filibuster reform shows just how intransigent they’ve been.
